Final Thoughts

While many contemporary authors consider PKD popular fiction, this course has stimulated a discussion that elevated PKD's works to an academic level. Where my interactions with his work had been purely pleasure, this class has done wonders for my ability to critically analyze texts that have very little scholarly work upon them.

Some heavy stuff, man.

"There is an intimate relationship between what is wise and what exists, although that relationship is subtle."

The narrator in VALIS gives us the delicious quote above. As so as a I read that line, I whipped out a pen and pad, scrawled it out, and furiously underlined it. So much of the novel is about what fundamentally exists.  Fat believes Zebra to be real, therefore to him, it is real; the narrator believes Fat to be real, so he is; the "commune" wishes for the daughter to be a Christ figure, so she dies. The very idea of VALIS, an AI in space creating reality around us is essentially concerned with the idea that the omnipotent being above us has omnipotence, or rather, is wise. That being need not be rational or irrational, a concept on which Fat and the narrator trip up so often upon.

What is most striking to me while reading VALIS, is how PKD manages to keep a decent into madness centered around a basic plotline found in so many other texts: a man's decent into madness; Oedipus Rex, The Metamorphosis, and Sarrasine, all depict the destruction of a man. However, these stories are written without the modern and post-modern stylings of metafiction, grand narratives, and most importantly PKD's ridiculously devotion to mind-shattering detail and, presumably, personal experiences. Of course, the reader's ability to identify with the characters and setting is essential, and here PKD has the upper-hand over Kafka and Balzac. SoCal and detox centers are much more real to me than castrated singers and prophecies containing shepherds.

Anyhow, PKD uses the boring tropes and elements of a story, which usually bore me, as a lifeline in the ocean of chaos. When reading most novels and the build-up to climax begins, I roll my eyes, and wait like so many audiences in a Micheal Bay flick, for the explosions to begin. In VALIS, I would be lost without knowing that this, right here, where Fat is arguing with Thomas, his non-self from a different place in space-time, is the middle of the novel, and the tragedy that the narrator has forewarned is about to occur. Thank god for pacing.

A Scanner Darkly is a study in the nature of the writing. I am certainly no expert critic, philosopher, or writer, but I cannot help but feel that the act of writing a novel is inherently self-reflective. Writers write to capture the essence of culture and experience; what does A Scanner Darkly say about its author? Biographical criticism is often, for good reason, looked down upon, but so much of PKD's work is essentially tied to the drug use and psychological issues Dick was so famed for possessing. Where poetry is so often connected to a political movement or personal agenda, the modern era in literature of "nothing outside the text" seems to be fervently followed in most classrooms, much to my chagrin.

I had the opportunity to attend a literary conference at the University of Wyoming. There, the keynote address was given by Dr. Ron Schuchard of Emory University. His presentation was a biographic criticism of T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland. In his address, Dr. Schuchard touched on a crucial event of Eliot's life that are most evident in his poetry: the sexual betrayal of Eliot by his wife and mentor. Perhaps my perspective is simply off; maybe many critics already look beyond Derrida's incestuous criticism. However, I cannot help but feel, in my experiences of digging through databases for topical sources, that so much of what is essentially the human component in telling a story is abandoned for the critical approaches of dead scholars.

Junkies

PKD's work seems to be very concerned with the downtrodden every-man. The character that we can't help but empathize with, despite his/her/their numerous flaws. More broadly, the archetypes and stock characters PKD plays with definitely are not of the pulp variety, of which even critically-praised works can be guilty: The Old Man and the Sea, Lolita, The Road, and so forth. The characters that appear in his novel reek of ennui and self-loathing. I would go so far as to argue that PKD intends for the reader to despise his characters, much in the same way a real person despises themselves for sins, however outdated of a Judeo-Christian ideal that may be.

What most interests me is the split in perspectives in A Scanner Darkly. Not the narrative perspectives, but the literary ones; the very form of the novel. About a year ago, I began reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and The Damned, in which Fitzgerald utilizes the same literary trick: Replacing traditional dialogue with faux script lines, as if from a play. This switch allows for the characters' speech to interpreted without any textual or descriptive clues, allowing for the reader to substitute for the actor. Each line is interpreted by the individual reader in whatever tone or manner said reader layers onto the dialogue. To be honest, The Beautiful and The Damned is not the best novel, and the use of the script-dialogue is a glaring weak point in the text; however, A Scanner Darkly capitalizes on the ambiguity and confusion generated by this formative switch, allowing for the already-disoriented readers to be further flung into the morass of the novel.

On a very separate note, I highly recommend you watch the film interpretation of A Scanner Darkly, after, and only after, having finished the novel. Each of Barris' lines echo of Robert Downey Jr. 

To me, the most interesting thing about the second half of Three Stigmata is the result of style and prose that  leaves the reader in a state of delirious pacing and character blending. Like a bad trip, PKD's already notoriously contradictory characters become both literally (through the usage of Can-D) and figuratively (through the usage of Can-Z and Eldrich's influence) blended together into a milieu of self-loathing and temporal distortion.

I struggle to express how I felt during the climax and conclusion of the novel. I can only compare the experience to viewing the extremely disturbing and violent film Enter the Void, which incidentally shares a number of themes with Three Stigmata, including habitual drug usage, fetishization of innocence, and a preoccupation with spirituality. Both PKD's novel and the film share a slow decent into madness, a uncompromising devotion to instigating change in the viewer/reader, and the exploration of the validity inherent in escapism.

PKD continues a number of themes found in Do Androids Dream.. and most of his other stories: Drugs as a consumer culture, forced colonization, and people with psychic powers.

The influence of mind altering substances is central to the idea of Three Stigmata, though the substances themselves are merely a side effect of desiring an escape from the dreary and increasingly pathetic lives lived first by the colonists, and the character assume, inevitably the inhabitants of Earth as well. Escapism is crucial to the novel, and some broad philosophical questions are asked: Can people live with a comfortable lie? Is a pathetic existence better than no existence at all? A number of solutions are offered to those desiring something more in their lives: Traditional religion, evolutionary leapfrogging, chemical substances, and even reading.

PKD's novels are fraught with painful moments of loneliness, reminiscent of a late night spent staring at the ceiling. However, Three Stigmata takes this ennui and introspection and dials it upward, allowing the reader to wallow in the misery and self-awareness of the lives on the scorched Earth. Characters are cowardly, self-absorbed messes, struggling to live squalid lives in the shell of civilization. Psychology is provided by talking suitcases and automatic cabs. Everyone is abusing something or someone, and every day is more retched than the last. Three Stigmata  is an unusually emotional piece from PKD, and I look forward to the ending.